Blizzard
by redonthefly
Summary: It's still winter, and this is just a small respite in an old fashioned blizzard, but the ice is broken.


It was snowing – a completely ordinary winter storm, no magic at all – a determined snow that fell slowly and heavily at the same time, slowing business in Arendelle to a halt while its citizens stoked their fires and shut their doors against the wind.

By the third evening, Kristoff has started to pace: he worries about the snowpack; and whether or not it will be possible to go on a harvesting trip later in the week; and for that matter when at all he'll be able to go further than the castle gates; and if the whiteout will stop.

Anna hadn't seemed to mind; she cocooned herself in several blankets, plopped down in front of the fireplace with a stack of books, declared it was high time she caught up her reading, and promptly fell asleep.

Privately, Kristoff is impressed with just how hard and how quickly Anna can sleep – for someone with as much energy as she has, she also has the uncanny ability to drop into a deep slumber literally whenever she felt like it. She snored very lightly too, a whisper through her nose and slightly open mouth just visible under the pile of wool on the chaise sofa.

"I don't know how she does that," Elsa remarks lightly from her seat across the room. "It takes me ages to fall asleep, and then I wake up at every noise." Kristoff nods, not sure of what to say – _do you talk about your sleeping habits with the Queen?_ – and turns from where he stood by the hearth, clasping his hands together, bouncing uncomfortably on his heels.

"She did the same thing last week, on the way back from visiting my family. It's a really bumpy ride in some places – you need to hold on – and she just lay her head down and…done. She didn't even stir until we were almost ready to stable Sven. That's an easy three hour trip, with a headwind and not a lot of snow pack and everything, and I'm not even sure…" He stops abruptly. _Don't babble. _Elsa sat at her wide wooden desk in a tall backed chair, head bent again over a letter; the Queen did not take snow days, regardless of the weather, and Kristoff is very aware that it's just the two of them, effectively alone.

The room falls very quiet and Kristoff exhales deeply, sitting gingerly in one of the finely upholstered chairs. He crosses his arms, then unfolds them, tries sticking his hands in his pockets (_awkward, not working_), and finally rests them on his knees, strumming his fingers against them, throwing shadows on the wall. The chair is a little too low to the ground for someone his size, and his legs feel too big – all of him feels too big, clumsy in this finely dressed room. It's a bit ridiculous he knows; he'd spent the whole afternoon here yesterday with Anna and Elsa, but _she'd_ been awake, laughing, reading columns from the newspaper out loud, showing him how to cut snowflakes out of the pages when they were done.

Talking with Anna is easy. He's not exactly shy, but breaking into conversation with a stranger has never been a particularly strong suit of his – Anna had led the way in that area, talking talking talking all the time, never minding his quiet moments but also asking just the right questions, so when he did talk, he had something real to say.

Elsa made him nervous in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on. It wasn't her ice magic – no, he was far from afraid of that; ice he understood – nor her status exactly, (too much exposure to Anna, he supposed) but in the vaguely uncomfortable way of two people who, despite long exposure to each other have never spent more than five minutes alone.

On the couch, Anna shifts and snores louder, the book she'd been reading slipping to the floor to lay, ungainly, pages down on the carpet. Bending forward (_ooof, knees_) he picks it up and replaces it to the top of the small stack next to the sofa.

"Kristoff." Straightening, he turns to face Elsa, who is watching with her half smile (_sort of like Anna's, not quite though, but almost_) and beckoning him with a small gesture. "I need a break from this," she says, waving her hands dismissively over the stack of paper in front of her. "Do you know how to play chess?"

He doesn't, so up he gets, large hands pushing against his knees to propel him from the too small chair. Elsa pulls another of her tall formal chairs (_where did that come from?_) around the opposite side of her desk, and Kristoff sits, feeling marginally more comfortable in a seat where he knees don't threaten to bump his chin.

Watching him with a careful expression on her face, Elsa waves over the empty wooden surface. Chess pieces and a board appear, sculpted out of pure clean ice and snow, and his jaw drops.

"_Woah_." He means it to be appreciative; it comes out more like a gasp, and Elsa flinches visibly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Her voice – usually clear and authoritative – wavers, a note or two higher than normal. "Please, sorry, I'll just, I thought –" she makes a movement as if to wipe away evidence of the chessboard, but Kristoff instinctively reaches up and closes her wrist in one of his hands. He's never touched her before, and what little skin is exposed from her long sleeves is cool. Under her other hand – braced against the desk where she was preparing to stand – a breath of frost grows.

"Elsa, don't." She looks at him, looks at the chess pieces on the table between them, then at him again, eyes wide. "I think they're exquisite. _Really._"

"Oh god Really? I don't know. I thought you'd like them. Maybe." She's shy, Kristoff realizes. _That's what I hear_. "I mean, I don't get to…just because, you know." She shrugs awkwardly with one shoulder, her expression somewhere between a grimace and a grin. He releases her wrist, nodding, thinking that it's true: except for the ice rink she'd created after the great thaw, he could not recall ever seeing her use her powers in public.

"_I _like them," he says again, and picks up a rook, examining it closely. He expects it to begin to melt in the warmth of his hand, but it doesn't.

"Elsa, I'm serious: I've told you before, but if you ever wanted to get into the ice business, you'd really…well, you'd do well."

"Really? I like making the little things, the pretty things. Sometimes." Her voice is soft as she settles back down into her seat, watching him carefully. The frost disappears.

Kristoff replaces the rook – _still perfect_ – and looks her straight in the eye, raising his eyebrows, gesturing toward the chessboard, the windows where the storm presses snow and ice high onto the glass panes.

"Elsa. Ice is my LIFE."

She laughs, the insecurity finally melting away from her face, and he can see her more clearly – the queenly reserve and remnants of anxiety shed to reveal a young woman his age (_she always comes across so much older_) with sharp eyes, a slightly impish expression, and a genuine, unharried smile.

She leans across the wood and plucks another piece off the carved chessboard, rolling it between her fingers.

"This is a Bishop."

On the fourth day the wind stops, and Anna coerces them into a snowball fight in the courtyard – she loses, spectacularly – Elsa laughing more than Kristoff can remember ever hearing in the six months he's known her, a fine trim of frost lace clinging to the edges of her cloak.

He catches her eye once, gestures to them and she lights up again, no longer shy, and he realizes he is no longer nervous.

It's still winter, and this is just a small respite in an old fashioned blizzard, but the ice is broken.


End file.
